Monthly Archives: May 2009

One of my very first cases as a government appellate lawyer pitted me against a good friend from college. After the Tenth Circuit ruled and the time for petitioning the Supreme Court expired, we discussed the case in depth. There were at least three issues, as I recall. It turned out that my friend and I saw them exactly the same way. We agreed not just on the correct result »

In the course of my web browsing today, I ran across a column in the Boston Herald by Margery Eagan, on the Sotomayor nomination. I’ve never heard of Ms. Eagan and the op-ed isn’t noteworthy–it’s standard issue liberal triumphalism. But it struck me that this paragraph might be unintentionally illuminating: Note to those arguing that if a white man said about caucasians what Sotomayor did about Latina women judging better, »

What do you do when your country is mired in the deepest recession in the EU, with the economy expected to decline by 16 percent this year? If you’re Latvia, you hold a blonde parade: Several hundred blondes marched through the Latvian capital Riga Sunday in a bid cheer up the crisis-hit Baltic nation, suffering the worst recession in the 27-member EU. Organisers said they were determined to bring positive »

My Examiner column deals with, what else: the standards Republicans should apply during the upcoming consideration of the Sotomayor nomination, and what the applications of those standards might mean. »

One of the most striking features of the young Obama administration is that whatever personal popularity the President enjoys has not carried over to his policies. Obama is currently enjoying a bounce due to greater approval by Hispanics–the result of the Sotomayor nomination–but once again, that bounce fails to be reflected in the realm of policy. Rasmussen finds today that by a 67 percent to 21 percent margin, voters “oppose »

For baseball fans of a certain age, 1959 is remembered as the year the Yankees lost the pennant — the only such year from 1955 through 1964. More shocking than the Yankees’ failure to win the 1959 pennant was their inability even to make a race out of it. This was the result of a terrible start. On May 30, when they arrived in Washington for a double-header with the »

Rock star Tina Turner gave her memoirs (written with Kurt Loder) the irresistible title I, Tina. Loder is the respected former editor of Rolling Stone. He knows how to tell a good story, and in Turner’s life he had a great one. If the experience of life’s ups and downs qualifies one for the Supreme Court, Turner qualifies several times over. I would hold the destruction she wrought on John »

John and the estimable Andy McCarthy have been discussing what standard Republican Senators should apply when voting on a Supreme Court nominee of a Democratic president. I’ve argued many times that Republicans must apply whatever standard the Democrats use when a Republican president makes a Supreme Court nomination. For if the two political parties don’t employ the same standard, one of them will have an unearned advantage when it comes »

The Emily Litella Presidency continues: The Obama administration insists it has no obligation to provide access to a top secret document in a [warrantless] wiretapping case, setting up a showdown next week with the judge who ordered it released. … The judge has ordered department lawyers to appear before his court Wednesday to make the case why he should not award damages to the now-defunct Oregon chapter of the Al-Haramain »

If you don’t read anything else today, read Byron York’s searing account of what happened last time a brilliant Hispanic jurist was nominated to a high-profile appellate post: Born in Honduras, [Miguel] Estrada came to the United States at 17, not knowing a word of English. He learned the language almost instantly, and within a few years was graduating with honors from Columbia University and heading off to Harvard Law »

A friend informs me that if Judge Sotomayor becomes Justice Sotomayor, she will join Clarence Thomas as the second current Justice whose origins include poverty and a single parent family. Judge Sotomayor is a Catholic school product. She attended the Blessed Sacrament School in the Bronx and then Cardinal Spellman High School. Justice Thomas also graduated from Catholic schools. There are no Justices from poor, single parent families who graduated »

Everton scored the quickest goal in the 138 year history of the FA Cup today, when Louis Saha fired home a bullet in the 25th second from a Mo Fellaini knockdown. At that point, I said to guy next to me at the bar, “only 89 and a half minutes to defend.” That was joke, but Everton seemed to intent on just this approach. It was never going to succeed, »

At The Corner, there is an extremely interesting dialogue between Charles Krauthammer and Andy McCarthy (who is becoming, on what seems like a daily basis, an ever more indispensable voice on the right). Krauthammer’s current column is on Judge Sotomayor; he concludes: Make the case for individual vs. group rights, for justice vs. empathy. Then vote to confirm Sotomayor solely on the grounds — consistently violated by the Democrats, including »

In Britain, the Labour Party has taken the political hit for that country’s weak economy. Worse, it is engulfed by scandal: revelations about Labour MPs’ improper charges to their Parliamentary expense accounts have disgusted the electorate. Thus, current polling shows Labour’s support at only 21 percent, the lowest yet recorded. Everyone expects that the Conservatives will be swept back into power at the next election. Good news as far as »

Paul Mirengoff wrote about the Ricci v. DeStefano case this past January in “Racial preferences — the plot thickens” when the Supreme Court accepted review of the case. The case involves a truly disgusting example of the injustice of “affirmative action” that was blessed by Sonia Sotomayor as a member of the Second Circuit panel when it affirmed the district court decision in a ruling that devoted one paragraph to »

President Obama proposes to increase taxes on American companies–already the second highest-taxed in the world–by eliminating the deferral of double taxation on income earned abroad. In this video, Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute explains, in concise and accessible fashion, why Obama’s proposal is a terrible idea that will damage our economy and cost American jobs: I think President Obama’s worst weakness is that he is ignorant, not only of »